


turning into black and white

by derogatory



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Class Differences, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-25
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-09-03 10:14:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8708563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/derogatory/pseuds/derogatory
Summary: His whole body sings with it, the thrill of Jord pressed flush against him. He claws long angry lines along his back and it's all he can manage from not shouting already, demanding, Fix this, fix me, and shoves him against the mattress with more force than is probably necessary.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [desastrista](https://archiveofourown.org/users/desastrista/gifts).



There's no excuse for not contacting someone from maintenance sooner. After all, Aimeric is paying for a service— or rather, his father is paying for a service.

He writes a note before he leaves in the morning ( _LIGHTBULB FIX_ ) to remind himself to put in a work order. He doesn't even need to call the front office or stop in, he can just fill out the form on the apartment complex's website and be done with it. Then some nondescript worker can trek up the fifteen flights, use his ring of keys, and enter Aimeric's apartment (all while he's off at class) and change a single bulb.

Except he keeps forgetting to do it. Either he's late for class and doesn't have time to put in the order before lecture begins, or he finds himself weirdly engrossed with the speaker and forgets. Even on a slow day he has to be careful when submits the request. Can't be today; he won't get home until after ten and who's to say the repairman's gonna remember to lock the door behind him? Last year they dropped off a lease renewal package (half melted candy, balloons, and some comic sans written nightmare of a note) and forgot to lock his door on their way out. Free accent wall painting and six months of discounted rent later, Aimeric's fairly certain they won't make that mistake again. But what if? So, no, he can't ask them to fix it today.

Another time won't work; because Alina came yesterday to clean, and a repairman is too gauche to take his boots off. He'll leave dirt on the carpet and Aimeric will have to live with that until Thursday when the housekeeper comes again.

And then _another time_ he remembers to put the order in is no good, because he left a bunch of stuff on the table under the light and he's not comfortable with some rando pawing through his belongings. Wait, will they bring their own ladder or use one of his dining chairs (never sat in, display only)? Aimeric makes a secondary note to remember to clean off the table (he won't) and move the chairs to another room so no one uses them as step stools (he won't do that either, they're too heavy).

Then the refrigerator breaks.

The lack of light in the fridge is unexpected, surreal. Aimeric reaches inside curiously and feels the plastic shelving. It's still cool to the touch, so maybe the refrigerator has only been broken for a few hours. He wrenches open the freezer and hurriedly touches all the packages of ground beef, the bag of chicken breasts. How long does it take for meat to spoil?

"Fuck," he says to the half-thawed cutlets.

He doesn't have a problem with phone calls. Aimeric is perfectly fine on the phone; if anything he's probably better than most people. After all, in high school, a man called him with the wrong number and said Aimeric sounded hot. So, yes, he can make phone calls, only someone deficient would have anxiety about being on the phone.

Aimeric's hand hovers over the maintenance number. But maybe the office downstairs would be open.

They aren't, and the number (which Aimeric calls while standing livid in the deserted building lobby) says on weekends the call is directed to an emergency line where he can leave a message about the problem and a repairman will call him back. Aimeric hangs up quickly. It's not an emergency. He'll survive.

(On the elevator ride up to his apartment, googles, "Can you die from being in the same room as spoiled meat?" Results inconclusive.)

Back in his apartment, half holding his breath, Aimeric leaves a long meandering message, hopefully about the fridge being broken. Although when he hangs up, he's not completely sure he mentioned it.

Aimeric throws himself on the couch and watches TV without seeing or hearing it for fifteen minutes before his phone rings.

"What took you people so long?"

A pause. "Well," the man on the other end begins carefully. "You didn't leave a phone number, so I had to check with management how to contact you."

Maybe it would've been better to let the spoiled meat kill him. "Oh."

"Unit 1511, right? I'll be there in about thirty minutes."

Aimeric huffs and tries to protest, but the mouth-breather on the other end has already hung up. He looks at the carpets; white and pristine and resolves to make sure this asshole takes off his shoes before he steps inside.

  


* * *

  


The repairman knocks instead of ringing the bell. He looks completely ordinary, almost offensively so. Aimeric isn't sure what he expected. Maybe someone older? Not this ordinary. He has a perfectly normal haircut, a defined jawline, and an amused turn to his mouth that Aimeric takes immediate dislike to.

"You're the repairman?"

"One of them," he says and steps around Aimeric easily. Aimeric follows him with low, suspicious looks. "I mostly just do the emergency calls." 

Aimeric shuts the door behind him slowly. He can't put his finger on what he was expecting, what this person isn't, and it bothers him deep under his skin. As the man makes his way into the kitchen, Aimeric realizes he forgot to tell him to take off his shoes.

Opens the fridge. "Oh, this hasn't been broken long."

"You said it was an emergency," Aimeric counters stubbornly.

He sets a toolbox on the countertop.

"Do you go to Arran Tech?" He gestures at the books on the kitchen table.

"No," Aimeric corrects him. Then, hurriedly gesturing to the burnt bulb, "That light's out too." For somebody who was snooping around Aimeric's apartment a moment ago, the man doesn't seem too observant now. Aimeric feels his nerves flare. "Unless that's not enough of an emergency for you."

The repairman makes a quiet, noncommittal hum to show he heard him, and Aimeric presses his tongue tight to the back of his teeth. This is clearly someone he has to keep an eye on. He lingers at the edge of the counter.

"Hey, help me out, would you?" He motions Aimeric closer and Aimeric moves, albeit apprehensively. Calloused hands guide Aimeric's over one end of the fridge before he moves to the other side. Aimeric has no idea what to make of this. "Help pull the fridge from the wall," the man orders, as if they're in _his_ house, like he's not at Aimeric's beck and call. From their closeness, Aimeric can see his pulse beating on his neck.

He doesn't know how much help he is (the fridge definitely is pulled farther from the wall on the side opposite Aimeric), but the repairman thanks him anyway, sliding out of sight. He talks to Aimeric while he works, something about frayed wiring, cables, who cares. Aimeric responds in brief, stilted sentences. His mother has commented that Aimeric rolls his eyes without realizing it, so he tries to keep that at bay, even if the guy can't see him from that position.

Within the hour, the fridge is back in its place, cold and working, and Aimeric's not going to die from spoiled meat.

"The light, also." Aimeric reminds him, gesturing with a jerk of his chin. He watches when the man reaches for one of the dining chairs, thinks the better of it, and goes to get a ladder with the new lightbulb. When he returns and reaches up to change the light, his shirt untucks from his waistband, and a sliver of skin peeks out at Aimeric. He looks at it, brings a hand to his mouth. All right. He can work with this.

The repairman gathers up his tools. "It's been nice meeting you," he trails off, the uncomfortable realization they _haven't_ been properly introduced dawning across his face.

After seeing the muscles under the man's shirt, Aimeric is in a much more generous mood. "Aimeric."

"Jord." He waves over his shoulder on his way out. "Good luck with school."

  


* * *

  


It's forty minutes into his lecture on Monday morning when he has a thought; _I want to see him again._ He scratches his pen into the page of his textbooks until it rips through.

He amends that thought, because it's too sweet to describe anything he's wanted since grade school. _I want him to fuck me._

  


* * *

  


Aimeric spends the rest of the class imagining how it will go. This weekend, he'll find some innocent way of deliberately destroying the property he rents. Call the emergency maintenance line and leave a message for Jord. And when Jord arrives, Aimeric won't be too eager, won't even pretend to be concerned about the issue. But he'll stay close to him while Jord solves the problem, close enough that he might sweat a little, that Aimeric might see it trail from his neck to his blue collar.

Maybe he'll sit on the countertop while he works. Ask him some dumb questions and pretend to be interested. Offer him something to eat, maybe fruit. Let the juice of it drip down his arm. He'll hold it out of his reach, make him come to closer. Get fucked over the counter. Forget about him, or maybe see if he could get fired for that kind of fraternization? Aimeric taps his pen on the edge of the table. He'll see how he feels after they screw.

Aimeric makes the necessary purchases on the way home. He spends an eventful Friday night seated in the kitchen, watching reality television over the counter and tossing sunflower shells directly into the sink's garbage disposal.

The next morning he calls the emergency line. The day crawls by with no repairman and Aimeric leaves two more messages.

When he comes back from a coffee run Monday morning, a maintenance note flutters on his counter; it's from someone named Andry. Aimeric rips it into tiny pieces, drops it down the (newly repaired) sink and has two glasses of rosé to settle his disappointment.

  


* * *

  


Slightly buzzed in class that afternoon he investigates what constitutes as emergency repairs. Apparently not a broken garbage disposal.

He leans back in his seat.

Breaking a window is out: Aimeric suspects that's something that takes time and money to fix, and at fifteen stories up, he really has no way of breaking it without looking culpable. He doesn't want his father lording a lost deposit over him when he moves out either. Sabotaging the lock on his front door seems fairly dangerous. Aimeric has no reason to think someone would try and break in, but he's rich and handsome; maybe that lock is the only thing separating him from violence.

Breaking the toilet is out, obviously. A cursory search on "why fridges break" doesn't look like it's something he could manipulate either. "Overstuffing" the refrigerator is a thing that can happen, but he doesn't want Jord thinking he's some kind of food-obsessed hoarder.

Aimeric rests his chin in his hand and stares past the whiteboard.

So. Air conditioning then.

  


* * *

  


Aimeric investigates. The central cooling units are grouped according to the apartments they're under, but given the fifteen stories they service, that leaves fourteen other wiring boxes that could be his. Aimeric scowls at them, and wonders what kind of labeling system repairmen could have that he doesn't understand. It's unacceptable something so blue collar is inscrutable to him. He tries to get a closer look and gets dirt on his jeans.

Most of the boxes are off; it's a cool day. Aimeric looks up at his distant balcony, considering the methods of elimination. He could turn on the AC inside his apartment, come back downstairs and investigate which box, if any, whirled to life. That will eliminate a few. Then go back upstairs, turn it off and come back down to the ground and investigate. That will narrow it down to, at the very most, three possible units he can tamper with.

It's too much hassle just to get fucked, so Aimeric drops a handful of stones in the boxes currently on, each lurching to a grinding halt.

  


* * *

  


Back in his apartment, the air conditioning is effectively broken. At this time of year, the weather is fine and the breeze in the upper floors is nice, so most people probably wouldn't be bothered.

But Aimeric is not most people. He prefers it cold, he says in the message to the emergency line (he's getting good at these, he can always show improvement if someone would bother to notice) so it's important someone handle this as soon as possible, preferably before bed.

Aimeric feels a rush of adrenaline. He can talk lots more about his bed when Jord arrives.

  


* * *

  


It was a mistake, sabotaging the one thing he's picky about (untrue, Aimeric is picky about _many_ things, from overhead lighting to pen color to the way fingers fit together when someone offers to hold hands). Jord didn't call, didn't show up unannounced, didn't do as he did that first visit and avoid ringing the bell, instead using the door knocker and startling Aimeric out of his skin. Jord doesn't do any of these things.

The sun sets and the temperature drops, but not to the extent Aimeric wants. He prefers it cold after all, asleep under heavy, sheltering blankets. He wrenches open the windows and tries to coerce a cross-breeze; what's the point of a luxury high rise if you can't get a decent wind through it? The sounds of traffic below grate at Aimeric as he lies over his blankets in hot, miserable resignation.

Partial resignation. He leaves another message with the emergency line, possibly calls Jord irresponsible, and tosses his phone across the bed.

This is getting to be too much work.

Getting involved with someone has only been acceptable when it requires zero work on Aimeric's part. He can't avoid relationships entirely, because relationships are things that are expected of him, and Aimeric is nothing if not "meets expectations.” He gave up trying to surpass them, because with older brothers there was probably never going to be a moment in his life where he particularly stood out. And that was fine. His personality suited a youngest son, or his personality molded to adapt to what remaining corners of his parent's hearts were reserved for him. He didn't take it personally; they'd been hoping for a girl. Parents have done worse things when they don't get what they hoped for. Aimeric performs exceptionally adequately and gets an adequate amount of attention and affection for it. Maybe if he tried harder he'd do better, get better.

This late in the game he can't bring himself to pretend to try.

For a while he saw a therapist. Nobody thought anything of it, not that there was anything weird about why Aimeric would see one. His secrets met expectations, even with a doctor-patient confidentiality clause. A lot of those things about himself were covered in that office. Lots of complexes were thrown around, lots of Greek and Freudian terms.

"Freud is generally not studied anymore," his therapist corrected him one afternoon. "The foundations of psychology, but no further. His methods were flawed at best and exploitative as worst." Aimeric tugged at an errant thread on the chair's lining. From then on he puts the terminology on himself, but silently.

The Regent is a business associate of his father.

Sometimes the Regent sends emails late at night, ones that Aimeric pours over and doesn't mention to anyone. He doesn't write much, little things, but probably important things. Aimeric saves them in a folder within a folder within a folder, buries them under flight itineraries and college blackboard assignments. They're throwaway messages, things the man probably didn't spend more than a few minutes on. But to Aimeric they are lifelines of casual remarks, of heavily guarded affection. He knows that's what the letters say, even if neither of them can be explicit about it.

(Aimeric wants to be explicit, wants to show him all the new things he can do, that a grown body can do, but he hasn't asked, not yet anyway, but maybe _next summer_ —)

Relationships are normal. They're pins in the wall of an unaffected life, milestones in growing up and growing independent. Examples of his growing apart from something that defined his childhood but not in the monstrous ways as other people want him to believe. His therapist threw around more words, dirty things like 'victim' and 'blameless.' Aimeric got tired of correcting him, and as soon as he was old enough to drive himself to the meetings, he stopped keeping them. Lied about finding a new therapist when he moved away. After all, he doesn't need one. He's cured, not that anything had ever been wrong with him. It wasn't like that. Aimeric isn't like that.

So Aimeric dates. Girls were needier than he wanted, so those never got too far. They talked too much and never listened. Aimeric isn't sure he has anything worth hearing but he wants it to be an option. He can't have someone else dominating the conversation with pointless chatter. He moves onto guys when he's in his own place, when his mother doesn't get a front row seat to his affections (she has to be careful, she needs to vet every person who gets within an arm's reach of Aimeric from now on, and he's not stupid enough to confuse her guilt for love). They're always older but not too much older, not as much as he thinks he'd like. He's afraid of hitting that right balance where he might like it too much, might completely rewrite the love he's already had. He cuts them off before it feels too comfortable, gets too easy.

Everyone has their one love, and Aimeric's already had it. That's the best way to put it. He doesn't need something new, doesn't want it either. No approval will live up to the Regent's anyway. The rest of it, other relationships, they were only important to keep people interested. To make him look desirable for the next time-wasting relationship to give him attention when he needs it, and satisfaction when he withholds it. Anything more he gets from the occasional new email, the alert that shakes him awake and brings one hand between his legs, reading and rutting and leaving him raw and empty when it's through.

For now everything is just biding time until he has his degree. Then he can get a position at Arles and be closer to his goals. No one could question their connection once he's earned his place at the company. No one would think anything if the Regent would called Aimeric into his office, where they'd be alone, where he would tell Aimeric how much he missed him. He'd praise how hard Aimeric worked to get there and they'd be happy together like Aimeric's sure they were when he was younger.

 

Tonight there aren't any emails but Aimeric doesn't sleep. The apartment's too hot and his head's too full. He stares at the ceiling and counts the rotations of the fan until he's dizzy, trying to figure out what he's doing with Jord. If it's worth so much work.

He closes his eyes, thinks of Jord and is too mad to jerk off.

  


* * *

  


It's not a deep sleep that he's roused from, the sound of the knocker banging against his front door. Aimeric wrenches it open, levels a furious look at the handyman.

"Tired?" Jord asks, blithely unaware of the unlivable conditions inside Aimeric's apartment and his head.

"Of course I am," he snaps. "You didn't bother showing up any sooner. I don't sleep well when it's hot."

"I'm sorry." He looks genuine. Aimeric is immediately suspicious. "It's not technically an emergency if the temperature's under seventy degrees." Who makes that sort of arbitrary rule, Aimeric fumes, stepping aside to let Jord in.

"If it's not an emergency, why'd you show up?"

He taps curiously at the AC's wall controller. "You sounded upset." I am upset, Aimeric wants to argue. It's not an argument. He feels a drowsy form of shame creep to his ears. What is he doing with this man? What will he do when he has him? Jord turns, shoots him a tired smile and says he'll check the outside units. _Let me know how to tell them apart._ Aimeric wants to ask. _Let me put my mouth on you._

Jord's not smiling when he comes back upstairs. He wipes his hands on a rag. He still keeps his shoes on, like an animal, but at least he won't leave dirty fingerprints everywhere. Aimeric imagines those hands smearing oil and grease over his thighs. Wishes he wore slightly less revealing clothes to bed.

"Someone's putting rocks in the boxes." 

"Oh?" He hopes he's not too tired to fake surprise. Let him prove it, Aimeric's mind rails. As if a repairman's word is really worth anything over his own. I could have you fired. I could put you between my sheets and you'd be thanking me, don't accuse me of something so ridiculous.

"Yeah, a couple other units are tampered with too. So I'm going to take care of those and then head out." Exhaustion nags at the ends of Aimeric's frayed nerves. He's not allowed to leave, not yet. But something like guilt grounds him, wipes all potential invitations from Aimeric's mind.

Jord helps himself to a scrap of paper at the coffee table, scrawls something down. "Here." He hands it to Aimeric. "It's my personal number."

It knocks Aimeric off balance, like they missed a step. This feels important somehow, like emails in the middle of the night.

"There's already an emergency number," he says, and feels stupid.

"Right. I want to check it out even if it's not necessarily an emergency." Aimeric forces his gaze to stay on the numbers. "I'm worried your apartment has so many issues, and now this? It doesn't make a lot of sense." Jord rubs his neck. He didn't clean his hands well enough, a black smudge darts over his collarbone. Aimeric swallows hard. "It feels like things keep breaking."

"I didn't really notice."

"I bet you've got more important things on your mind. Finals are coming up, right?"

"Uh huh," Aimeric lies. Well, it isn't a complete lie. Finals are presumably coming up, for someone, somewhere. For people who've attended their classes consistently in the last month.

He feels his face shift into a grin with more teeth than feeling. "You don't think this is a bad idea?" he asks. "I could call you at all hours now."

"I know you're not going to abuse it." Jord smiles. "Hopefully it's nothing. But just let me know directly if anything else like this happens." Aimeric nods slowly. The air conditioning roared to life earlier and it makes the hair on his arms stand up. That's probably all it is.

"Hey." He follows Jord to the door. He feels like he's still asleep, sloughing through heavy thoughts to be coy. "When you're done with the other boxes, do you want to come back up?" His face feels stretched thin, trying to emulate Jord's easy smiles. "You can crash here."

"No thanks," Jord says, too quick, too casual for Aimeric not to take immediate, grievous offense to. "You should get some sleep, you look like you need it."

Back in bed, alone, Aimeric crushes the paper in his fist, imagines using the number to sign Jord up for a variety of scams and salacious services. When he jerks off it doesn't feel like a relief, but something that holds him back, that's bottling up these feelings even worse than they were before.

"Fuck," he breathes, head back against his pillow, cool air wafting overhead.

  


* * *

  


At first, Aimeric isn't desperate enough to call Jord on his personal number. He won't even text him asking how late he was out fixing the other units (he doesn't care, he wanted to see Jord and he got it. This is his job, Jord didn't sound like he was complaining, so Aimeric has nothing to apologize for. He doesn't feel badly about wasting his time.) For days, he doesn't fold flat the number, letting it sit crumpled up and untouched (mostly untouched; the next morning the breeze from the air conditioning threw it into a crack between the dresser and the wall. Aimeric rubbed his arm raw against the rug fishing it free, catching it with the tips of his fingers. He tested the weight of in it in his palm, the importance of it, before shoving it back on the nightstand.)

He tries to focus on other things, like classes and the Regent. His father's birthday is coming up. Does he bother sending a card? He could call, but last year only his mother had time to talk to him. And anyway, his father didn't call _him_ on his birthday. There weren't any emails then either. Aimeric's caught up in the sorts of things he ought to be doing, like studying to fix the grades he's tanked from spending too much attention on the repairman. He's failed a few quizzes, he'll need to haul ass to keep from failing at least one course. He'll never make it to Arles at this rate.

If that's still where he wants to be.

He skips class on Tuesday, calls Jord, and says he smells gas.

"Are you serious?" Aimeric flinches at the panic on the other end of the call. "Shit, Aimeric. You should get everyone out of the building." That's not exactly what he wanted. Jord hurries on, "We need to call management, and they'll call the city."

"Wait," he says. This is turning into a disaster. "Never mind. It's not a gas leak. I'm probably having a stroke or something." He hangs up and tosses his phone across the couch. It rings immediately.

Apprehensively, he answers.

"Let me come over and check," Jord says breathlessly, words coming out in a rush. "Open some windows until I get there."

Aimeric wrenches open a couple more windows, miserably noting he could've kicked in one of these and felt less guilty than he did now. It's not a familiar feeling.

  


* * *

  


Jord takes his time pacing the length of the apartment. Aimeric feels his face burn with embarrassment, for himself or maybe for Jord, so stupidly gullible. Next I'll tell him my bed is broken and he has to fix it, he fumes. We'll test it out together. They’re acting like children. This is idiotic.

"I think you're safe." Jord wears so many open, honest looks Aimeric can't tell if he truly thinks there was a leak or he's too nice of a person to call him out. "Maybe it was something outside."

Aimeric makes a vague sound of agreement. Picks at the end of a fingernail.

"How are classes?'

"They're fine," he says automatically. Considers it. "I don't know, I might drop out."

Jord's look is one of pure concern. It makes Aimeric's temples hurt. "You shouldn't," he says, worry laced through his words.

"Don't tell me what to do," Aimeric counters, purely on instinct.

"I'm sorry." Every time he says that Aimeric feels his mouth curl into an ugly look. "Why do you want to drop?"

"It's a waste of time."

"You think? What would you rather be doing?" Jord asks. Aimeric shrugs. "Is there someplace else you want to be?" There is, Aimeric thinks, bright and desperate. Or there was. It seems farther away than ever, the job prospect to get him closer to that love. Love where the person that means the most to him only tosses him scraps. It feels far away and stupid standing in front of Jord, still out of breath. He must've ran, he must have been worried. He barely knows me and gives so much and something like disgust is bubbling just under the surface.

When Aimeric doesn't answer the question, Jord says, "You sound like you've got everything figured out." Aimeric scowls; he doesn't like to be teased, not by anyone, especially not by someone like this. About something as important as the Regent and where Aimeric envisioned his life going before Jord showed up and ruined everything.

"Maybe you think I should stay in college ‘cause you never got to go."

"I think that's jumping to conclusions," Jord replies, slow and careful. "And it might get you hit."

"By you?" That wouldn't be so bad, maybe.

"By someone," he says in that humming, noncommittal way and Aimeric feels a flush crawling up his throat.

"Who?" Aimeric snaps. "Your boyfriend?" Well. That's one way to ask if he's single. It's a floundering sort of blow and Aimeric regrets it instantly.

When Jord frowns the line of his brow pinches tight. It's ugly, Aimeric thinks, but doesn't mean it.

"You're in a bad mood today," he says, doesn't answer the sort-of question. "You didn't need a gas leak to call me over, but maybe next time don't do it just to take things out on me."

He leaves and even with the brief company Aimeric is lonelier for it.

  


* * *

  


Aimeric decides full stop he won't fake any more emergencies. Jord is unexpectedly both over-concerned and snitty, and Aimeric doesn't need that kind of nonsense. It'd be better off if he avoided this charade completely and called Jord to his place without a faux emergency. Say something like; Jord, you're halfway good looking and I'm a great fuck. Come over and screw me and we can go on with our lives. I'll pass my classes and get an intro-level position with Arles, and you'll give attention to someone worth it.

When Aimeric breaks his key in the lock, he makes sure to do it while it's unlocked; no need to be trapped outside his apartment when he's trying to seduce someone. Tampering with the lock is dangerous, that's why Aimeric excluded this idea from the start. But now things seem more desperate somehow, the lack of Jord's attention more painful than usual. He should be used to it by now, being ignored. 

So he'll break the lock and whatever dangers happen because of it, maybe they're deserved. Someone breaking in, getting roughed up, getting held down. Why not? Were there really any lines left Aimeric could draw in the sand, anything done to him that he hadn't already welcomed?

( _You wouldn't deserve that,_ his therapist had said, gentle, always gentle, but if Aimeric didn't break apart as a kid he wasn't going to now. _You didn't deserve what happened to you then either._ )

When Jord arrives he goes through the gesture of knocking, never mind he could let himself in with a busted lock on the front door.

"How'd you manage this?" he asks as the door swings open, leaning it to examine the stuffed lock.

Aimeric shrugs. The hammer he used to snap the key is hidden under Alina's cleaning supplies. "Guess I'm stronger than I look."

"I don't doubt that." He smiles, and the apartment feels a few degrees warmer. "You're sticking with it?" he asks, pointing towards the books on the table. For once they're open.

"You made some good points." Aimeric says, hovering over Jord's shoulder while he fishes out some tools and struggles with the lock. "Besides, it's a waste of my time if I just flunk."

"Exactly," Jord replies, distracted, hand slipping. Aimeric worries about Jord hurting his hands first, scuffing the door second.

After a few more minutes of working, "This is really wedged in there." He stands up looking resigned. "I'll call a locksmith I know, but it might take a while."

"How long?" Aimeric asks. Thinly veiled, _Will you stay?_ He has some ideas how to spend the time if Jord will stick around.

"Half hour, forty five minutes." Aimeric would prefer longer but he can make it work.

He smiles as innocently as possible. "Do you want a drink?"

Jord hesitates. "I'm still on the clock."

"You're also in my house," Aimeric points out. With some cajoling, Jord finally takes a glass of wine. Aimeric was always sure he could convince the repairman; he has a face like he doesn't know how to say no. Aimeric likes that face.

They linger around the table, Aimeric asks questions and Jord answers. He didn't go to college, as Aimeric suspected, but he doesn't seem too bitter about it. He's against gossiping about other tenants at first, but by the second glass he relents, at least about the tenants who have moved away.

"You know the girl below has a dog." Aimeric says playfully. Jord nods, takes another sip. They're aware of her violation of the 'no pets' clause of the lease. "Is it an emergency if I call you over to kill it when it's barking at three am?" He laughs, warmth under his cheeks. Aimeric wants to brush his knuckles over one, wants to reach over the counter and take Jord's hand without caring how their fingers fit together.

"What are you studying?" Jord reaches over the table to turn the nearest book towards him.

"Entrepreneurship."

"That's a class?" Jord asks, eyebrows raised. He sounds amused, like maybe he's teasing Aimeric, and somehow Aimeric can't muster up the strength to care anymore. He lost track of how many glasses it's been. "You understand all this?" Jord looks up from leafing through the pages.

Aimeric smiles despite himself. "Most of it."

"It'd be a waste of a mind like that not to get a degree." Jord's lips are overly red from the wine. "I don't need to tell you that."

"No," he says and moves the book, the one remaining thing between them, aside. "But I don't mind hearing it from you."

The doorbell is harsh and sudden. Jord springs to his feet so fast he nearly upends his chair.

"That must be the locksmith," he says, flushed from more than just the wine. Aimeric stays sitting, watches Jord answer his own door with wine stains on his mouth. 

"Okay, Orlant's going to rekey this for you," Jord explains. The locksmith gives a short, knowing look over Jord's shoulder, and Aimeric feels immediately murderous. "So I'm going to head out."

"Oh," Aimeric feels his expression soften. He wasn't ready. This has been a waste of the wine. "All right."

Gathering his tools, infuriatingly casual, "When's your test? I could come over tomorrow and help you study."

  


* * *

  


He wakes up to an email from the Regent and makes a note to reply in the morning. He's dead tired; he stayed up late retyping his notes so they're less of a mess when Jord reads them tomorrow.

  


* * *

  


Jord is a surprisingly good teacher.

Aimeric keeps meaning to crawl in his lap, to pin him to the wall and swallow around his cock. But instead they go over term definitions, summarizing methods and more than a few times Jord looks adorably blank about the subject matter and Aimeric has to refigure his course of action. At the top of the hour I'll put my hands on him. In ten minutes I'll kiss him. After this set of flashcards I'll tear my clothes off and demand he screw me on top of these textbooks.

"I think I may be out of my depth," Jord says during a break. He declines the wine, although Aimeric has a glass for his nerves. After this glass I'll tell him how I feel. "This is complicated stuff."

Aimeric runs a finger along the rim of his glass. "Business is complicated."

"You're right about that. You're smart enough for it."

"You mentioned that." Aimeric feels a blush creeping up high on his cheeks. He hopes it's only from the wine. "You're learning some things too. You can't be a handyman forever."

"I'm happy where I am."

Now. It's now or it's never happening at all. Aimeric steps towards him, voice low.

"Are you?"

Before Jord can reply, Aimeric's phone rattles against the coffee table. Another interruption. Aimeric scoops the ringing mobile into his hands, opens his mouth to continue his soft, inviting tones to Jord, and stops. The call is from the Regent's office.

He slams the balcony door shut behind him. When Aimeric answers, he thinks he hears breathing, maybe. He can't remember the last time he called him. Why would he call him? Did something happen? Was it a mistake? Was he angry? Only someone deficient would have anxiety about being on the phone.

Oh. The email.

"I'm sorry," he blurts out. "I should've written back." Excuses hang hard at the edge of his tongue, but he won't ask for them. They wouldn't be accepted anyhow. They seem flimsy now; I was working hard at school, it's hard to raise grades after you've let them fall, I don't know if I want to come to work at Arles after all, I found someone I like and he does more for me than a solitary email every few months.

Aimeric gnaws at his lip, straining his ears to hear some acknowledgement. The call ends without any.

He looks over the railing, measures the distance to the ground. He heard about a woman who jumped from this high up. When she hit the pavement her whole body folded. The coroner couldn't identify her; her whole body rolled over itself. She was crushed the size of a child. Aimeric leans on his hands, as far out on the balcony as he can without falling.

"Girlfriend?" Jord asks, looking up when he steps back into the apartment. Aimeric scowls and doesn't reply. _How heteronormative,_ is his first thought. _How do I answer that?_ the second.

Aimeric sends Jord on his way, says that's enough studying. Says he feels good about the test. He doesn't. He doesn't feel good about anything, not now, maybe never. His phone is a dead weight in his hands.

Before Aimeric shuts the door in his face, Jord calls, "Good luck!" and Aimeric stares at his book until his vision swims.

  


* * *

  


It's all been a mistake. Aimeric tries to figure out when it went wrong, at what point of his planning did this go south and become unfixable. He doesn't know how far back he should go. Should he have tried to suck his dick when he came over to fix the fridge, the first and only legitimate issue in this apartment? Should he have found someone who had a passing resemblance to Jord (that one guy in his Macroeconomics course) and taken it from him instead? Should he have moved to a different complex the second he set eyes on Jord, or when Jord offered his personal number? Or maybe it was all a great colossal mistake from the day Aimeric took inventory of his life, of his experiences and thought, sure, these are all worthless things that he deserves.

Aimeric passes a hand over his face.

Just be done with it.

 _How did the test go?_ Jord texts. Aimeric doesn't write back.

  


* * *

  


It takes a few moments for Aimeric to figure out what woke him. He blearily pokes at his phone (no new emails, not a single one, not even from your professor for the final you skipped, not even from your Mother who's sure this time she can prevent you from getting hurt. Not even from Jord.) A loud beep cuts through the midnight silence. Aimeric groans, rolls out of bed, padding sleepily around the apartment for the source of the sound. It chirps at intermittent times, so it takes some wandering. One of the many smoke alarms. Must be low battery. 

Aimeric doesn't care if he scuffs the floor, dragging one of the previously too-heavy dining chairs underneath the alarm. He hauls himself onto the chair a little too quickly, too recklessly. So what if he falls and cracks his head open. Nobody cares what goes on in this apartment. He could be dead for weeks before his father even noticed, if he ever did. Guion would attend Aimeric's funeral only if it fit his schedule.

Aimeric feels less maudlin, more awake as he stretches out his fingers to no avail. The ceilings are lofted. The smoke alarm is too high. Aimeric strains to try and reach again. It beeps back at him, mockingly.

Unfortunately, this constitutes as an emergency.

  


* * *

  


"You weren't joking about liking it cold," Jord says, never taking off his shoes off when he enters the apartment. "It's downright arctic in here."

The shrill noise interrupts Aimeric mid reply and Jord laughs entirely too loud and genuine for the early morning hours. Aimeric trots to the couch to watch the other man set up his ladder, and in his sleepless haze tries to position his bare legs in a way that looks appealing. He does it out of habit; didn't he give up this idiotic seduction nonsense?

It beeps again.

"That is loud," Jord comments, stupidly. Aimeric's chest feels full with idiotic fondness. "No wonder you couldn't sleep."

Aimeric knows he ought to make idle conversation, but he's exhausted to his fingertips. What would you do for this good man if you had him? Aimeric hasn't done anything for someone else in a long time.

While he works, Jord says, "You never told me about the test."

"I failed." He drops his eyes. That's half true, because he'd have to show up to the test to get any sort of grade. But the material reminded him of Jord, reminded him of the Regent's phone call. The whole concept of classwork stung deep into the muscle and paralyzed him. He picks at a string on the sofa. "I'll have to retake the course over in the summer." Jord casts a sympathetic look down at Aimeric.

"I'm sorry." And he of course means it. "You must be really disappointed."

"I guess." He fusses with a throw blanket, with the intensity of Jord's stare, with the implications of admitting your shortcomings to some outsider. "Entrepreneurship might not be for me," Aimeric manages to say, the words thick and forced in his throat. "Maybe you were right. Maybe there's something else I want to do."

Jord nods, climbing back down the ladder. He's quiet, like he knows there's more to say, but wouldn't ask for it. The sort of man Jord is, he's probably never asked anyone for anything and Aimeric feels it all in one full rush. How much he wants to give him, how much he knows he'll finally get in return.

"I'm sorry I didn't write back," Aimeric says, feeling cornered, wonderfully so. "Your text."

Jord looks like it takes a moment for him to understand what Aimeric meant. "It's fine. You don't have to tell me anything."

"But I want to." Cornered, but not like when someone closed the door between Aimeric and his parents, told him not to mention this to anyone. Not like when the Regent promised if Aimeric worked hard and was discreet they could be together in Arles as long as Aimeric did everything that was asked of him without complaint. But he did do those things, those and so much more, and they got him nothing, got him scraps in some perverse manipulation for someone who hasn't put hands on him since he became a man.

Aimeric gnashes at his own lip, lost in thought, in remembering. "I want to tell you things."

"All right," Jord says at last, and the weight behind his words is heavy, important. Aimeric inches forward. He wishes they'd had some wine this time, not that it helped any before.

"It's a long drive back," he says, carefully. ("Not really," Jord says, "It's only a few miles—") "Maybe you want to stay the night?" Aimeric doesn't want to sound too hopeful, too vulnerable. But he's tired and Jord is so close.

"What, on the couch?"

"No." It occurs to Aimeric with slow, sleep-laden thought, that this isn't a tone of voice he recognizes. It doesn’t sound like the voices he used on time-wasting relationship, or one a child could have used. It's cold but heat swims under his skin. "Not on the couch."

Aimeric watches the other man's throat bob with a hard swallow. He takes a few, feigned cautionary steps closer while Jord hesitates, stumbling with a response.

"That's— It's probably not a good idea."

"You want to though," Aimeric says. Doesn't ask, doesn't need to. He knows how men look at him, he knows what he's good at and the fact he's had to wait this long ought to be criminal. He could say things Jord wants to hear, twist his body in ways that look good. But he's tired, and he keeps the house too cold and it's been years since he wanted something so openly.

He lays a palm flat against Jord's chest. There's a prickling at the corner of his eyes, and the heat that sat in the center of his chest has built to the point where it's scalding, burning through his skin at every point on him that isn't touching Jord.

They go very quickly from kissing to struggling with each other's clothing. Aimeric needs to make this quick, has to have Jord in his bed before he reconsiders, or before Jord introduces some arbitrary demands of Aimeric to keep his affections (Jord won't do that. That's not how people behave when they really care about each other. That's not real love. _You didn't deserve what happened to you then either._ )

They struggle with the condom. Aimeric tries to bat it aside. “We don't need it.”

"You're out of your mind," Jord says, keeps laughing and Aimeric won't be teased, won't be kept waiting a second longer.

"I don't care." Aimeric hisses, sucking hard, bold marks onto Jord's neck. "Mess me up."

His whole body sings with it, the thrill of Jord pressed flush against him. He claws long angry lines along his back and it's all he can manage from not shouting already, demanding, _Fix this, fix me,_ and shoves him against the mattress with more force than is probably necessary.

  


* * *

  


"Aimeric, slower," Jord pants. Aimeric braces his hands along the panes of his stomach, that sculpted skin that first called Jord to his attention. He rolls his hips leisurely and grins at the moan it elicits. "Please."

"Don't you dare come," he orders and Jord, bless his stupid home grown, salt of the earth, good guy heart, nods.

  


* * *

  


Jord wraps the blankets around them, tucking it in at the corners to keep the warmth inside. 

"Maybe I'll take next semester off," Aimeric says softly. Jord's fingers are comfortably laced through his. "I could learn a trade." He turns his face, mouth ghosting over Jord's collarbone, letting it warm up his skin. The body under his shivers, but not from the cold. "You could teach me."

"I have a feeling we'd wear you out."

Aimeric hums the way Jord does, a quiet, questioning sound. "Promise?" and tips his mouth up to meet his.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sure this pales in comparison to the absolutely TREASURES you've written for this pairing, but I hope you like it!! Sorry it got away from me a little..


End file.
